Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life's work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In this best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and vivid characters, she marvels at the gruesome history of undertaking and relates her unique coming-of-age story with bold curiosity and mordant wit. By turns hilarious, dark, and uplifting, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes reveals how the fear of dying warps our society and "will make you reconsider how our culture treats the dead" (San Francisco Chronicle).
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Community Reviews
This gives you a peek inside a crematory but the author sprinkles in some history on the human relationship with our own mortality, the rituals supporting those and the evolution to where we are now. It has just enough ick factor to keep you entertained but I feel like i learned a lot and I wasn’t expecting that. Growing up with a dad who worked part time at a funeral home (and babysitting myself amongst the caskets and next to the embalming room while he worked a wake above) I hang on to an interest in where we go and what happens to us when we die. For me knowledge is power, and knowing the details however grotesque actually helps me not fear the inevitable end.
Doughty's field of expertise and death in general is something that I've never really considered (perhaps it's more accurate to say, as the author calls us out for, something that I don't LIKE to think about), but Smoke Gets In Your Eyes had me ruminating my own mortality and other's, and the impacts of the cultures surrounding death. I feel a little easier thinking about death now, and this book gave me a sense of closure on the recent deaths of loved ones that I didn't know I needed.
Highly interesting, and not at all what I thought I would be reading towards the end of the year.
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